The bad

What’s new about the Alcatel 1C?18:9 display, fingerprint sensor, 3G connectivity only

How much does the Alcatel 1C cost? $89

The Alcatel 1C isn't a fancy phone by any stretch of the imagination, but it's impossible to argue that it doesn't represent good value.

Alcatel's entire smartphone business is built around providing low-cost handsets for the market that can't (or won't) spend into the mid-range or premium price points. For years, it's offered affordable phones, most of which were tough to recommend due to their limitations. While the Alcatel 1C isn't fancy by any measure, the sum of its parts and its low asking price make it a very easy recommendation if you're after a simple replacement phone on the Telstra network.

Design

18:9 display is better than you typically get at this price point

The inclusion of a fingerprint sensor puts the 1C ahead of many of its competitors

There's certainly nothing all that exciting about the Alcatel 1C's design. Where the Alcatel 5 and Alcatel 3V have designs that reach above their price point, the Alcatel 1C is exactly what you'd think a cheap mobile phone might be, from its plastic body that tries – but largely fails – to look premium with a striped rear that's meant to evoke a more metallic finish.

At 146.9 x 70.6 x 9.2 mm with a carrying weight of 150g, the Alcatel 1C is light enough in the hand and easy to grasp if you're not a fan of larger handsets. Like the rest of Alcatel's 2018 output, the Alcatel 1C features an 18:9 ratio screen, meaning it's higher and (technically) larger than some competitor phones in terms of screen size. You're still staring at a low-resolution display, though, at just 960 x 480. This is what you get for spending less than $100 on a phone.

What you do surprisingly get for a phone at this price point is a fingerprint scanner for unlocking the Alcatel 1C. There's no onboard NFC, so no sign of Google Pay to be seen. Still, most phones at this price point skip over biometric security, so it's a nice addition. In use, it is rather slow. More than once I had to tap it twice to get it to actually recognise my fingerprint during testing.

Camera

Bare-bones camera is pretty much what you'd expect from a budget smartphone

Don't expect brilliant high-speed or low-light photography

The Alcatel 1C has a single rear 8MP camera as well as a front-facing 5MP camera, which is low by 2018 standards, even for a budget phone. Alcatel pumps this up by shooting (by default) at 13MP/8MP through interpolation, although even there the results aren't exceptional, although they're entirely acceptable for a phone this inexpensive.

You will need patience to get good shots out of the Alcatel 1C and you certainly shouldn't expect anything decent in low light or with fast-moving subjects. That's totally beyond the Alcatel 1C's capabilities, so if camera power is a key feature you're after, you're likely to be disappointed.

Performance

Slow, but no slower than other phones at this price

Lack of 4G support means slower Internet speeds

Sub-$100 phones are always slow and it's not fair to compare them against their mid-range or premium brethren because that's very much not the point. Running off the quad-core MediaTek MT6580M with just 2GB of RAM, the Alcatel 1C was never going to be a performance monster. That's very ably demonstrated by its benchmark results, which are very ordinary indeed.

The Alcatel 1C wasn't capable of running our standard 3DMark Slingshot Extreme Test, but again this is par for the course for very low-cost phones. If your gaming habits don't extend much beyond Facebook games, it'll be fine, but for anything more taxing, it will border on unplayable if it runs at all. Which could, of course, make it a great phone to give to kids if you're worried about excessive screen time because the Alcatel 1C's low gaming power means they're not likely to even try.

Those benchmarks extend out to using the Alcatel 1C on a day-to-day basis. It's a slow phone and again that's expected for a handset in this kind of price range. Single app use on Android is slow and you're just asking for trouble if you try to do two tasks at once, like stream music while browsing the web on the Alcatel 1C.

The Alcatel 1C is available in Australia locked to the Telstra network. While it's not officially the replacement for Telstra's own ZTE-sourced handsets, it largely fills that gap in pricing terms.

One trap to be aware of here is that the Alcatel 1C is a 3G-only phone, not a 4G-capable one. That means its speed, even in areas with good Telstra 4G coverage, is always going to be markedly slower. There's a decent argument that you might not see the benefit out of faster data on a slower device like the Alcatel 1C anyway, but if data access is key to you, it's going to be worth spending more for a fully LTE-capable handset.

Battery life

The Alcatel 1C doesn't pack strong internal components and on paper, the inclusion of a 2460mAh battery would suggest it shouldn't have much battery stamina either.

That's where that lower-resolution display and low-end processor step in because this was one area where the Alcatel 1C pleasantly surprised me. The Alcatel 1C's Geekbench 4 battery score was indeed one of the lowest I've seen, but its actual battery time was quite solid. That suggests that while it's not working very hard during Geekbench 4's linear test, its battery endurance is decent. Here's how it compares against a range of cheaper handsets:

Charging is still via the older, but no doubt cheaper-to-build microUSB standard. There's no sign of rapid charging or wireless charging. Again, you're paying under $100 for the Alcatel 1C, so that's to be expected.

Verdict

A bare-bones smartphone that distinguishes itself with its tiny price tag

Do you want a fast phone with a great camera and up-to-date Android? Then the Alcatel 1C isn't for you. Neither is it for you if you want a flashy phone or one with a great display or unique features.

That's because the Alcatel 1C very much knows its market. It's for anyone who wants a simple, inexpensive smartphone at (just about) the lowest possible price point. You've got to be willing to accept that the camera is ordinary and that you'll be waiting a while for apps to respond every time you use it.

But if all you want is basic and you want to spend less on the handset than on many of the mobile plans for the network it's locked to, it's hard to argue that the Alcatel 1C doesn't represent value for money.

Alcatel 1C: Alternatives

If you're after something a little more stylish than the Alcatel 1C at nearly the same price point, consider the Nokia 1. It's a better looking handset and it's also more likely to stay up to date with the inclusion of Android Oreo Go than the Alcatel 1C is.

At the kind of price point the Alcatel 1C commands, you could also look at the lower-cost feature phone market, including 2017's Nokia 3310 3G if that's more your style.

If you want more grunt or a better camera, the practical reality is that you are going to have to spend more than the Alcatel 1C's asking price. If your budget can stretch to it, phones such as the Motorola Moto E5 are also worth considering.

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